Sets aside conviction; two years jail term awarded in corruption case to employee
SRINAGAR, JAN 31: Observing that suspicion cannot take the place of proof in a criminal trial, the High Court of J&K and Ladakh on Wednesday set aside the conviction and two years jail term awarded by a trial court to a government employee in connection with a corruption case registered in 2009.
Allowing an appeal filed by an employee of erstwhile CAPD, Mansoor Ahmad Malik, against the judgment of conviction and sentence passed by the court of Special Judge, Anticorruption (Additional Sessions Judge Pulwama) on 3 December 2015, a bench of Justice Vinod Chatterji Koul held that the prosecution has failed to prove clearly and explicitly the demand of illegal gratification.
“In a criminal trial, suspicion no matter how strong, cannot and must not be permitted to take the place of proof. This is for the reason that the mental distance between ‘may be’ and ‘must be’ is quite large, and divides vague conjectures from sure conclusions,” the court said while referring to a judgment by Supreme Court.
In a criminal case, the Bench said, the court has a duty to ensure that mere conjectures or suspicion do not take the place of legal proof.
“The large distance between ‘may be’ true and ‘must be’ true, must be covered by way of clear, cogent and unimpeachable evidence produced by the prosecution, before an accused is condemned as a convict, and the basic and golden rule must be applied,” the court said, adding, “In such cases, while keeping in mind the distance between `may be’ true and `must be’ true, the court must maintain the vital distance between mere conjectures and sure conclusions to be arrived at, on the touchstone of dispassionate judicial scrutiny, based upon a complete and comprehensive appreciation of all features of the case as well as the quality and credibility of evidence brought on record.”
The court, the Bench said, must ensure that miscarriage of justice is avoided and if the facts and circumstances of a case so demand, then the benefit of the doubt must be given to the accused keeping in mind that a reasonable doubt is not an imaginary, trivial or a merely probable doubt but a fair doubt that is based upon reason and common sense. The employee was sentenced to two years in jail in a case FIR No.26/2009 of Police Station VOK, after being held guilty of commission of an offence punishable under Section 5(1)(d) read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
